One Must Fall: The Battle for Ganymede
by TheWhiteOgre
Summary: Giant mecha fight over ownership of Jupiter's plentiful third moon in massive televised arena combats, as intrigue, sabotage and murder explode in the ever-increasing tension behind the scenes, surrounding World Aeronautics and Robotics' most secretive project, NOVA.
1. State of WAR

**Author's Notes**

 **One Must Fall: The Battle for Ganymede** is a novel re-imagining of the events, almost exclusively, of the single-player campaign mode of One Must Fall: 2097, the one-on-one fighting video game by Diversion Entertainment, published in 1994 by Epic MegaGames, now just called Epic. The title is in the vein of the era's Street Fighter or, somewhat more closely, Mortal Kombat. Originally, I had intended to do detailed descriptions of all the machines, and many of those will still appear; however, it is easier for the reader to simply search for the relevant images.

It's been a decade since I really played this game. Some of my memory of it might be rusty; ergo, where the story departs from the game's canon, such as it is, future chapters will hold with the story's newly established canon. After all, that's how fan-fiction works.

 **CHAPTER 1**

 **State of WAR**

Heavy, gray rain streaked the windows of the mag-lev train as it zipped over the ruins of the Midwestern countryside at almost three-hundred-thirty kilometers an hour. With one hand, the young blond woman wiped her face, as much to cover it as to remove the tears that had joined the drops of rain in their falling. Her other pressed a corner of her data pad, and the screen's faint cerulean went flat black, and she tucked it away into a hidden pocket at her hip. Things were bad; painfully bad. It wasn't enough that Crystal's parents had mysteriously died while working on WAR's mysterious Nova project; her brother, a ranking member of the corporation who wouldn't state what he did for a living, had, with that notice, effectively disowned her. Losing her portion of the family's considerable fortune, as well as any of her stake in the company were hard, but that was nothing compared to what he'd said, his admonition for her not to show up at the company's televised tournaments at all.

Throughout their entire lives, Christian had been Crystal's guardian angel. He was stronger, braver than she, and much admired by WAR's chief publicists and executives. Crystal herself had more flown under the radar, hid in her brother's shadow; an easy place to get lost. Christian cast a great shadow. He'd become her guardian angel, always quick to jump on anyone who spoke ill of her, or threatened her in any way. In their youth, Christian had been involved in more than a few fights simply to protect his sister's honor. If his defense and attention sometimes felt a little strange and suffocating, it was, at least, the greatest association she'd ever had. Now, he'd told her that she would be getting in the way, that she had no place in the tournament, and that he refused to sponsor her. A brilliant bio-chemist in her own right, Crystal had expended the last of her finances making this trip, securing her spot. After all, she had a claim to the company as much as anyone. As much as Christian.

It was with obvious haste that the parts of the Flail had been strapped onto the trucks now speeding on roads over the Nevada desert. Flat, empty sand stretched out nearly as far as the eye could see, a bandanna-sporting man with an assault rifle hanging out the passenger side window of the rear truck. He pulled his head in to jam a radio, shouting obscenities at it before he put his head back out and fired shots into the air. The other trucks picked up speed, one an enclosed vehicle falling behind slightly, black smoke pouring from its stack.

What the man had been firing at was evident, now. High above them, a giant airborne base shot forward, weapons on its bulbous nose turning slowly toward the escaping vehicles. One of the trucks tried to turn, losing traction at those high of speeds and spinning out of control before toppling, the bed with its heavy cargo remaining upright. Even as the driver stepped out and loaded up a shotgun with explosive rounds, another shadow flew from the carrier, long and lithe, slamming into the ground almost directly on the lead vehicle's hood. The almost-humanoid, somewhat feline figure slowly unfurled from its crouch, standing at an easy eight stories tall. It went low again, one hand stopping the next truck, throwing it end-over-end backward, and one by one, the convoy stopped. The men on foot were reloading, having spent their ammunition on it, but it was all for nothing. The next instant, they were crushed or scattered or torn to pieces from the aircraft's weapons, and the Jaguar silently observed the proceedings.

It did step back as the aircraft eased itself down, and another Flail's spiked wheels rolled off its back. The wrecker began loading the parts onto the carrier, until something changed in the ground. From a distance to the south, another Flail approached. Its paint was chipped, armor missing in spots, one of the hanging chains from which the Flail derived its name completely missing. As it drew closer, the WAR team could see even more was wrong with the machines. Though it approached with clenched fists, ready for combat, the left fist refused to close completely, and the shielded eyes sparked occasionally. Even experienced pilots could only guess what that meant.

The fight, then, was brief. WAR's Flail finished packing away the parts recovered from the wreckage and loaded itself back up onto the carrier, powering down, while the Jaguar turned to face the incoming wrecking machine, hardly more than a shambling wreckage itself. The tan Jaguar outpaced the Flail easily, wearing it down quickly with driving kicks to the head, catching the one good chain in an overhead throw and tossing it several kilometers away. Each flurry of disarming blows only seemed to make the Flail more determined, and finally it charged, paused and ducked as the Jaguar's attack flew over its head, and lashed out immediately with the damaged fist. That strike knocked the Jaguar back. It took only a moment for the Jaguar to reassess the situation and fly back into action, leaping high into the air and coming down directly onto the Flail's head, slamming it into the ground. Then, with both hands it lifted the struggling machine, launched itself upward again, and as it landed, tore the damaged Flail in twain over its knee, tossing the pieces aside before it remounted the carrier.

Milano Steele awoke slowly, groggily, yet with a strange determination. A nurse backed slowly away as the chemicals clouding his mind began to fade, and he sat, gradually, reaching for the bottle of water that usually sat beside his bed. The door to the tiny room opened, the passage filled by a large, dark-haired man. "You spent far too long toying," the man told Milano. He couldn't tell if he was frowning especially now, or if that was simply the man's usual grumpy face.

"No," he finally replied, taking another swig of water to try and wash the metal taste from his mouth. "Whoever piloted that thing was an expert. No rookie takes hits like that, or times a blow that well. Even you would have lost to some fresh wannabe in that old and broken of a HAR. Whoever it is, they're desperate."

"Tell Jean-Paul. This tournament might provide the perfect bait."

Milano had no response. Raven was, of course, right, but no one needed to tell the huge Navajo that; his very walk made it clear he knew exactly what he was doing, path back to WAR headquarters went on in relative silence, the Flail's pilot cheering with his friends about what he perceived as a victory. Of course he was wrong; Milano knew that. Everyone knew that, but hadn't the heart to tell him. This hadn't been a job worth getting excited over. The fact that it had even gone the slightest bit wrong meant there was more at risk here than they'd possibly imagined. It meant someone knew something they didn't, and for everyone who was anyone in WAR or any of its subsidiaries, knowledge was the greatest form of power. It was a good part of what made Raven so powerful, outside of his sheer physical strength and martial prowess.

The Devroes had been perfect puppets. What made it tragic was they had been the best working team they'd had. Raven rarely sat when he could stand, and now he stood, much against the crew's insistence, near the cockpit of the carrier as it hovered briefly over its landing zone near WAR's headquarters, and slowly lowered itself to the ground. Lift trucks, another Flail, and hovering platforms hurried out, while a pair of high-rigs meandered in behind the team to collect the Jaguar and Flail that had been used in the recovery. By then, Raven was already inside, stepping into the elevator as it shot him up over a hundred floors. When it stopped, the box remained still, slowly equalizing the pressure before the doors popped open, the air around Raven rushing out past him into the office space.

Here, even Raven was unwelcome, and while he didn't doubt his ability to take on anyone, the automated weaponry that covered most of this hall would cut even him down in an instant. They were subtle, except the one turret on the ceiling, but his carefully trained eye could just spot the hatches or hidden panels. Curiously, Raven always suspected that not all of the weapons were fire-arms. He expected Kreissack to have every kind of overkill covered when it came to his own safety.

"What... do you... need?" The man was ancient. His body had broken down decades ago, but through the careful, constant application of bionics, prosthetics, and other words that meant machines doing the job his normal body should have been. Each pause was a long, mechanical breath, and every sentence punctuated by a pained wheeze that, in anyone else, might have been a cough.

Few places anywhere made Raven uncomfortable, but Kreissack's office was definitely one of those places. He made his report quickly, and turned to leave. Before he'd made the door to the elevator, that wheezing, grating voice followed him, carried by just an ounce of the old force that had once held him rapt, to sit at the man's feet and learn. "The girl, the ... Devroe girl. ... I understand... her ... brother does not... wish ... her here. See... to it. There ... are enough... in ... this charade... as it is."

Plug did not look happy when Milano entered the bay, looking up longingly at his massive alternate body. "For the love of a the welding god, kid, what the hell did you run into out there? A boulder? I mean, I get the once, you're stupid like that, but repeatedly?"

Everyone took a ribbing from Plug. The man was always the hardest worker on the team, and always the last one to turn out the lights. Didn't make it easy, at first, but Milano had taken a liking to the old mechanic. Tournament fighter, they said, best of the best, from back when the H-for-human part of the HARs was a lot less mind-magic and more mechanical manipulation. He still kept a trophy on his desk, which was actually a toolbox that he happened to have papers and things scattered atop. Techs hurried across the scaffolding in front of the giant machine, welding, measuring, recording, tightening. Occasionally a man-lift would appear on one to get the tech just to the right height. Even from this distance, the noise was deafening. "Armor piercing bullets," Milano explained, futilely, he knew, but sometimes you just said it. "That punch, though. I should have seen that one coming. Whoever was driving that Flail was good, it was just a scrap 'bot."

His reward was an unsatisfied grunt. "You tried to come in high over a standing guard. Every new guy knows you never come in high at a standing guard, or even a slow advance. They'll flip that on you quicker'n a flash. Come on, kid. You got potential. Just watch your step next time. You join the advance, draw 'em in and hammer 'em with reflex hits until they can't see straight. You got that?"

A chuckle, and Milano nodded. Even though he knew the basics of HAR fighting, hearing Plug tell him how to do it, that cadence to his voice like he was reliving an old memory rather than teaching a new fighter, was music. "How long?" Milano finally asked, and Plug's incredulous look bored holes in him.

"Have it done before you need it again," Plug reassured Milano, then grinned and shrugged. "Tomorrow, most likely. Doing a fix-up on another 'bot, plus a custom paint job. 'Course, you got first call, but some of my guys are still working on this new thing."

New thing. That caught Milano's interest, and he leaned in. "New?" he repeated, and was confused himself at the look of confusion on Plug's face. The man led him all the way out to the third row of hangars, a normally silent place, and to a corner where noise could readily be heard.


	2. Showmanship and Sportsmanship

**Chapter 2**

 **Showmanship and Sportsmanship**

Having her brother turn her away and put her down had certainly hurt Crystal, but it hadn't stopped her. The apartment she'd tried to rent had been bought out by a WAR executive and was being demolished. She was even more surprised to see the painfully familiar colors of Christian's HAR tearing the place down when she got into the neighborhood. Her brother, who had always done so much to protect and uplift her, seemed suddenly focused on destroying her completely. Finally, she'd found and clandestinely purchased a small building on the edge of the city housing WAR headquarters, and took the public commute into the hangars. There, she met the amicably grumpy Plug. That paradox of a man met her with his old cart, and Crystal climbed aboard, wondering what was in store for her.

"You put out a lot of money to get a good 'bot," Plug told her, pride in his voice. "Now, I don't recommend a lot of these. You've got unstable and aggressive and experimental and downright dangerous things going on in some of these labs. But after I looked your record over, I gotta present..."

Lights, some of them, have a habit of coming on with a clang, as most high-powered beams are switched at high-voltage, if very low-tech, breakers. The beams fell on gray and rust, shining curves and sharp edges. "So, what's this?" Crystal asked, as much in awe as uncertain. "Dangerous or experimental or...?"

"Graceful," Plug responded. For a moment, the two simply drank in the slightly corroded potential of the Katana that hung in the bay, blades sharp, head hung as if in sleep, or shame. The moment passed with a clearing of the throat, and Plug pushed the cart on forward. A service elevator took them to chest level with the machine, close enough to touch, which Crystal did. "I have your color palette," Plug explained. "Soon as we bolt on and patch up some of this plating, we can start making this thing as lovely as you."

Her hand was still on the metal, feeling over a rusty spot when she turned her head to look at the man. "Thank you," she confessed, relieved. "When I got here, I didn't know how I was going to-"

"Just worry about the money," he stated, almost defensively. "I'll worry about the rest."

Again, she breathed, "Thank you," and stepped back into the service elevator

Milano Steele's dark eyes studied the blue-and-gold Katana carefully from where he stood. "For who, you say?"

"Dunno," Plug lied. "Pretty blond, had those blue-"

"Devroe," Milano cut him off sharply. "Crystal Devroe. Has Dr. Devroe approached you about this? Does Christian know?"

Plug's response was instantaneous and defensive. "Listen. I don't do politics. No politics, no drama. I just do this. Just... 'bots."

It was obvious Plug expected an angry Milano when he looked, and it was that expectation that caught him off-guard when Milano grinned at him. "You do a damn fine job, Plug. Just keep it up. Whatever happens, it'll make for one hell of a tournament, right? One for the history books. Like those fights you used to be in."

More or less, the WAR compound spanned an entire city, swallowing what used to be Carson City and the surrounding area in one huge, sprawling metropolis. Billboards flashed their products and messages at private drivers almost as much as public transportation, the mag-trams that zipped from corner to corner, hitting all the biggest attractions and main streets.

Legally, though, the actual compound, complete with security checkpoints, factories, offices and three skyscrapers, was only about a third of that. Crystal stepped off the tram and made her way up the sidewalk toward the compound proper. Somewhere in the distance a siren wailed, tires screeched, and a rapid trio of high-pitched pings that reverberated through the streets like dull thuds followed. Someone screamed, or perhaps it was just another mechanical noise of the late morning life. At the gate, a guard checked her ID, and ushered her through. From there, Crystal made her way to the gym.

During the work day, this place was usually empty. It wasn't the executives' gym, and the common-man use showed in the bare-definition of upkeep the place showed. The only other sound when she stepped into the large court was a mechanical whirring that, though distant, seemed to fill the otherwise silent void. If Crystal knew anything about HARs, and her parents having devised the new method of interfacing, she felt she should, it was that physical and mental training actually comprised a significant portion of the machine's own power. Habit, she supposed. Some people used props to simulate their HAR's particular design, others simply relied on their basic skill and let familiarity with the machine make up for the difference. Crystal, of course, had neither of those things. Nor did she have the time or money to hire a professional choreographer to help her come up with an exercise routine. It was a good thing she loved to dance.

An hour passed, the whirring grew more insistent. Crystal's training carried on until she couldn't keep up the pace, and she satisfied herself with much simpler exercises. Two hours. Two hours and no less. Still, a fifteen minute break couldn't hurt, as tired as she was, and after cool-down stretches she made her way to a row of fold-out chairs and gently sat in one of them. It was about then that she discovered the source of the whirring. In the distance, someone was practicing maneuvers in a wheelchair. It wasn't until they wheeled closer that Crystal thought she recognized the face.

The wheelchair-bound woman was older than Crystal by quite a bit, an angry frown dominating her face. When she approached on her way to the door, Crystal stood and attempted to introduce herself, but Cossette simply sped on by, deliberate in her failure to notice Crystal. It seemed strange for a moment, but Crystal pushed the cold feeling from her mind and resumed her workout.

In the access elevator, it was always lonely. Cossette was by no means the only disabled person working with WAR, but she was the only one whose office landed this high up the ladder. She neared her desk, pausing when she heard the annoying nasal voice of her therapist. "Ms. Cossette, I'm having trouble balancing your prescriptions with your actual medicine intake. If you want my help, you have to take the prescribed doses. I'm only trying to help you manage. If you're in too much pain, you won't be able to focus in the arena."

She had wheeled herself up to her desk now, and glared at him for several long moments before popping open a desk drawer and pulling out a pill bottle. "You want me to take my medicine? Fine." With one hand, Cossette popped open the bottle, poured half its contents into the other and tossed them into her mouth, swallowing.

He began to stammer out his disapproval before she threw the bottle at him. "Am I up to date now?!" she screamed, and the doctor backed quickly out of the room, stooping to lift the bottle from the floor. For a moment, Cossette thought she was going to cry; in truth, she knew she was just feeling sick. It had been years now; she hadn't shed a tear in a decade. This throbbing behind her eyes, dullness in her head and twisting in her stomach must have been due to an overdose of the medicine. It was a little tough getting the wheelchair over to the water cooler, but she managed, followed by about eight small cups of water, and the next several minutes were spent hanging her head, waiting for the nausea to go away

When it finally did, it was back to work, looking over sets of blue-prints for specific parts from an experimental HAR, the Mantis. Cossette brought up her com screen, and started typing out an angry e-mail about the schematic before her, one of a pair of long, inverted blades. This design would never be sharp, it would never _stay_ sharp. It needed the same old technology. The technology they'd used in Katana's blades, a polycarbonate alloy made of buckminster-fullerene-formed molecules. Almost impervious to alteration regardless of how much force was hammered into them. Sharp, too; that was the other thing. It wasn't sharp enough like this, not nearly. Her staff would find her several hours later, passed out in front of her desk, save off anything she had been working on, and carefully help her down to her on-site suite, one of the few who bothered with the luxury, or could afford it. Then again, in reality, she hardly could. WAR's proffering of the suite was largely, everyone knew, to keep the story of how she was hurt out of the press, and more importantly, out of the courts.

The problem most had going against Jean-Paul was his complete lack of expression. Most men had tells, or at least some frustration. Jean-Paul had still eyes and a jaw made of stone. One didn't feel as though their opponent was a man, but more an animal; no, a machine. His stance was standard, low and forward like most wrestlers, while his opponent, the tall, charismatic and eminently cocky Steffan, easily the youngest man in the room, stood tall, palms open, right foot set back; more of a simple bastardization of the popular kickboxing style than Jean-Paul's specific jiu-jitsu method.

In spite of Steffan's strong hits and perfectly timed retreats, only two blows were traded before the red-haired Jean-Paul caught Steffan's leg and gi, slamming him onto his back. Rather than following through with a pin, Jean-Paul disengaged, let Steffan spring back to his feet, and dove in for him again. Steffan's grin vanished as quick as it had appeared when the break was knocked out of him and he was spun, sent sailing through the air an easy five feet to land hard on his back.

Jean-Paul was gone. Steffan slowly drew himself from the floor, gasped for air and coughed, shaking his head. "Man's got a complex," he grunted, chuckling as he paced toward the showers. Others filled the center of the executives' gym where they'd been sparring the instant it was apparent that this contest was over, and another began. He paused to look over the olive-skinned Milano Steele, and turned back toward the contest. "You think they'll make good HAR pilots?"

There was a moment of pause, filled by the din of people training, sparring and exercising for personal health before Milano replied. "Good enough."

"But good enough isn't what the tournament needs."

"Which brings me to my first question."

Steffan had to laugh. He turned away and stepped into the shower, stripping off his gi and letting the hot water pour over him for only an instant. "You have questions? You came up here just to grill me?"

"Grill?" Milano didn't seem confused long, pushing past the idiom. "No, just curious, mostly. You already stand to inherit Iolo, more or less. Why go after Ganymede?"

Steffan finished scrubbing up, rinsed and was nearly finished toweling off before he answered. "Is there anything wrong with ambition?"

"Are you that ambitious?"

The sound Milano heard next he knew to be Steffan buttoning up his white high-collared coat and stepping out of the shower. He turned off his own water and finished up quickly, making his way for his office. He hadn't gone far when he saw Christian, and sighed, turning away. "Mister Steele!" Christian's voice carried, and Milano stopped. Not that he wanted to, but he couldn't be rude. Christian was a top scientist, an amazing athlete, and had a very legitimate beef with WAR after burying a pair of empty caskets not so long ago.

"Devroe?"

"You are among the security administration. Can you tell me what has been exported from the Ganymede location? I can't find records in my documentation."

Milano tried to offer him a smile, but knew the instant it crossed his lips that it looked painfully condescending. "Your documentation is scientific in nature, Dr. Devroe. Most of it would pertain to your branch of research, along with basic protocol and public relations documents."

"That's right." Christian still seemed to be expecting something. Milano studied him earnestly now before speaking out again.

"Dr. Devroe, I understand you demolished a hotel yesterday. Such a massive renovation project can't go unnoticed; have you signed the requisition forms? Or is this a private project? And, if it is a private project, how is it going to affect your work here? You've established yourself as a competitor in the tournament; how will this affect your performance there?"

Christian was on the defensive now, and could easily see he was getting nothing from Milano. "It is a private enterprise, yes, but I can assure you that it in no way changes the schedule of my work or my tournament intentions."

"I wasn't asking about your intentions."

"Do you know about the Ganymede exports or not?"

Milano's eyes softened. He earnestly did feel for the Devroe twins, but knew the more he said, the more danger they would be in. "HAR production is one of our largest enterprises, Doctor, whether Earth or Luna or Ganymede. I do believe Mr. Hothe and the rest of his design team are more suited to answer your question."

Deflecting did not set well with Milano. If only there were more he could say; in honesty, the answer wasn't as simple as Christian wanted it to be, and Milano knew what he was ultimately digging for. It was obvious, of course, but vague questions allowed plausible deniability. People didn't show up in dumpsters for asking what brand of coffee you preferred, but rather for inquiring if the importation was legal. Both of them continued walking in their separate directions, Milano making a list in his head.

Of course, the first would be Crystal. Then Steffan. Both largely unknowns, but with some amazing potential. Then himself, and Christian. Familiar faces with an up-and-coming vibe. Who else? Good old Shirro; grandpa. Not literally his grandfather, of course, or anyone in particular's, but an elderly man. Frankly, the whole tournament was his idea, and with his considerable karate skill, it was unthinkable that he wouldn't show up for it. More, then. Jean-Paul. He'd be sick of playing bodyguard for Raven, want to move on. Ibrahim, the most famous name in HAR design, as the Jaguar, Thorn and, to some extent the Mantis were all his idea. Who else? Cossette, of course, and Raven. He'd heard there was a chance even Kreissack would be dusting off his famous HARs to make an appearance, but those were only rumors.

The table was set. More or less. Milano couldn't help feeling like something was missing; the pit in his stomach was more than just the elevator plummeting at the maximum safe speed, resulting in almost-weightlessness. It was something else. The tournament itself, maybe. Most of these were good people. People with pain, with histories. Agendas, desires of their own. Lives that couldn't be denied, who'd helped shape, in some way, or inherited the formation of their world. The future, really; those who would shape the world, no, worlds - universe, really - moving forward. After all, World Aeronautics and Robotics owned more than the patent to HARs, they owned the patents to the only reusable, reliable space-faring craft that held any legitimacy. Not that others didn't engage in space travel, but it was so unreliable, it was almost a prerequisite that they be vagabonds. In some ways, it made WAR a fairly literal space guild; all travel, commercial, private or public, came down to their whim.

Just stepping back into the lobby Milano could breathe it in. The pre-conflict tension, calm before the storm. Oh, what a joyous storm it proved to be. So, so much would improve over the next few weeks, and these ten. Ten? Nine? The number evaded him. They would be at its center then, and its head moving forward.


	3. Round One

**Chapter 3**  
 **Round One**

"To say she was nervous would have been a gross understatement. Crystal's entire body shook as she eased herself down onto the cot, tucking her arms in beside her. Beside her, a nurse smiled patiently and sat, taking her hand as she eased the IV into her neck. It felt intrusive, but not painful. Then one into her arm, and reality somewhat shifted. Blurred. "I'm right here," the nurse reassured her. "Just relax."

"It took a while, and largely thanks to the drugs, but Crystal did relax, and felt herself slipping into her stomach. When she opened her eyes again, everything had changed. The bed and nurse were gone, and instead she was looking out over the hangar bay. "How do-" she began, but was startled by her own voice, so different. Loud and metallic. Another voice sparked in her head, startling her briefly, and it was then she realized she was still chained to the wall.

"Very careful neural programming," the voice stated. The nurse's voice. "Your parents came up with the design, if I'm not mistaken; the exact details are too much to explain in detail right now. I'll have the data sent to your office if you want."

"I don't have an office."

"Oh." There was a long silence, but the nurse eventually continued. "The information you see running past right now is mostly bootup and self-check data. For the most part, don't pay it a lot of attention. You'll know when something doesn't work out right. Now, you should be entering basic operation mode right about now. Vision clearing up?"

Crystal blinked, only there was no blinking. The data continued to flow until it vanished, replaced with body point statistics, pressure measurements, and a model that showed her body's positioning. Katana; her body _was_ the Katana. "Chief McEllis is unlocking your HAR now. You'll feel the clamps release, as well as see it in the data readouts. Try moving your limbs carefully. This kind of thing can take a lot of getting used to."

A faint hissing, and her body slumped a little before she corrected it. First it was raising one blade, and then the other. "I don't have hands," she noted aloud.

In response, the nurse laughed. "Of course not. Your HAR is designed for combat. It doesn't need opposable digits like the Jaguar or Flail, or drills like the Shredder. Step out of the hangar; move carefully. Your gyros should be working well, but they won't stop you from falling over, just let you know where your balance is. There you go."

"Can you see through my eyes?"

"I can. We have a monitor here because it's your first time."

Crystal found that at least mildly reassuring. Stepping out a little further, she extended her arms, watched them move. Watched the blade slice the air, the world spin around her as she moved.

"Sorry about the blur. Your eyes are accustomed to picking out important information and disregarding the rest. While your visual cortex is still trying to do that, the data feed from the HAR isn't as optimized as what your eyes see. It will take some time to adjust. Try looking around for a bit, get the hang of moving up and down the hangar."

An hour passed, and the nurse was telling Crystal to return the HAR to the hangar, which she did. It was clamped, and something blossomed in her stomach. By the time it reached her throat, Crystal realized it was her consciousness, just in time to lean out over the cot and vomit.

Extreme nausea is to be expected," the nurse confessed. "How did it feel? Not the... nausea. Being in an HAR."

When she was finished coughing and gagging, wiping her mouth and failing to get to her feet, Crystal looked the nurse in the eyes. "I was a god," she confessed, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. "Steel and polymer, made out of perfection. The... it has flaws, but I was there, and..." Another effort, this one successful, and Crystal hurried over to the door of where she was, looking up at the HAR she had just been running around. "I was it. That- that was me. And it was perfect."

A gentle smile was the nurse's response, while Plug, just approaching, chuckled. "Heard that a hundred times," he laughed. "Remember when it was me saying it, only back then we plugged in a little different."

Milano sidestepped, ducked, and threw his weight into a jab aimed at his opponent's midsection. The heftier Steffan slipped lithely out of the way and brought an elbow down toward Milano's spine, but Milano kept going down, dropping into a full-swing kick at Steffan's knees. It was enough to get him off balance, but Steffan aimed his drop with his elbow. It contacted, and the two sprawled out. The next instant, Milano was back upright, even as Steffan struggled to get a grip on him.

"Don't like wrestling?" Steffan tried teasing.

The response was a quick, "That's Jean-Paul's game," as Milano closed in with a raised foot, feinted a kick that Steffan went to block, and brought his other foot down with lightning speed onto Steffan's back. Just less than a second passed before Steffan caught his breath and rolled back onto his feet.  
"So tell me, what's all this noise about? Some project that got scrapped?"

"Nova was never scrapped," Milano explained, stepping into hitting range, putting his hands up as though to strike and simply stepping aside. While Steffan tried to lash out, followed by trying to spin to catch up with him, Milano unleashed with a series of quick jabs to the upper torso, right, left, and Steffan blocked and turned the punishment around, hammering a fist up into Milano's stomach that took the air out of him, followed it up with a knee that made his jaw clack, and an elbow hook that took him off balance. Milano wiped the blood from his face and coughed as he got back to his feet. "Fires. It was... plant fires. A private project... never really spans more than one lab, plus one plant, and just a few offices. Whatever they were working on-"

Proud of his accomplishment, Steffan stepped in to rejoin the battle, and Milano took advantage of that instant, hammering him with three quick punches, a knee to the stomach to double him over, uppercut that brought Steffan nearly back upright, another trio of jabs that removed the last ounce of resistance from his upper body, and lay him out with a flying spin-kick. "Was gone. All cancelled, and all project data recalled and scrapped. There's nothing left. A little sad, because HAR design has been stagnant for almost five years now."

Even as he dragged himself off the floor, Steffan was entirely sure he didn't want to continue this contest. Coughed, wiped blood from his lip, leaned back and took a deep breath of air, and settled into his kickboxing stance. "But the Devroes? Pretty sure if they just died in the fire, Christian wouldn't be kicking up such a storm about it."

"Fair enough," Milano confessed. "They were among the first on the Ganymede production facility's unveiling. But that was after they'd already cancelled their work on Nova and handed in the confidential details. Everything they did was by protocol, as far as I knew." Milano closed in, watched Steffan feint, backed out and stepped back in, all too quickly. Steffan was already pulling the first punch when he saw Milano start to retreat, so it startled him slightly when Milano stepped back into it. His flurry of head and upper torso hits culminated in a backhand and a powerful left straight that rammed Milano up against the wall.  
"Come on, Steele," Steffan teased as he stepped back. "I thought you were the king of speed around here."

A chuckle, and Milano got back to his feet. The images faded, and the two were standing almost five feet apart, suspended in rigs that allowed almost perfect freedom of movement. One of the earlier HAR control modules. Milano was first to start unbuckling himself. "I usually am," he replied. "But there's more to a fight than speed. You could stand to up your pace a little, too."

Steffan caught up a bottle of water and drained half of it, holding it out menacingly toward Milano. "More to a fight than speed, my friend. Your punches land like fly-bites. Seriously, learn to hit. I gather you're not bad at taking them, but honestly? I bet Crystal's nurse hits harder than you."

Cossette approached with her typical determination, her wheelchair gliding up to the hangar bay. It was easier here, anyway; the first battle of the tournament was to take place inside the test arena, a simple square of a room thirty meters deep, with reinforced steel links making a fence that ran up another thirty. Milano studied his bot for a while before turning back to Cossette, and smiling. "I can only say I respect your tenacity," he offered, his tone a little cordial, a little condescending.

"I don't need your respect," she spat. "Just the title." With that, she wheeled herself into the control room, and Milano walked into his, preparing himself, lying on the cot.

"Great news for HAR enthusiasts. Today, World Aeronautics and Robotics has allowed WRDE a sneak-peak into the arena that in just a few minutes will be the stage for the first of many battles for the title of WAR champion. WAR publicist Shirro stated in an interview earlier today with WRDE correspondent Elam, stating that the company intended to use these fights to raise awareness of the rapidly advancing technologies available in the fields of robotics, and that enticing new, young engineers and scientists was a significant part of WAR's intent. Here we see footage of the HARs scheduled for tonight's fight being drawn from their bays. Those... are some big machines. While no comment could be had from tonight's contestants, WRDE brings you live on the ground at WAR HQ, Elam. Elam, how are things over there?"

"Things are tense, Lis. There's an air of defensiveness and combativeness over here that feels like it's just waiting for the slightest spark to burn this whole place down. Tonight's battle pits relatively unknown Milano Steele with former Arena champion, space station designer and all-around crowd favorite Cossette Akira."

"Akira's been with WAR a long time, hasn't she, Elam?"

"That's right, Lis. Most of her adult life. Like I said before, this place is just shaking with tension, and anything could set it off. I'm sending you images of the different kinds of HARs used by the contestants tonight; we have Steele in his classic Jaguar, a favorite from the dawn of the modern HAR, and here is an image of Akira's more esoteric Electra. Not a loved favorite, but sources tell me this 'bot has some serious power. Those nodes on the arms are capable of producing insanely high amperage currents, and even directing them to specific targets. We can see here a lot of the viewers who paid for matches in the stadium are already lining up at the door. I think some are being let in. That'll be our cue to move on up, Lis. Back to you in the studio."

Milano stepped lightly through the door, and looked in contempt at the Electra lining the other wall. Quickly, he moved into position and readied his stance, studying the other HAR. Somewhere, a voice announced the fight, contestants and machines involved, and the crowd cheered rabidly. It all seemed so distant now, hearing little but the arena itself, listening for the go-ahead, that booming, "FIGHT!" that echoed through his being.

Electras were not particularly agile, nor slow; not strong nor weak, nor durable nor fragile. They were a careful balance of mediocrity of build, because their true power lay in the electricity they controlled. From simulations, Milano judged it unwise to challenge the HAR from a distance; it would always best his range. Even at mid-range, it created a shower of deadly sparks that shorted out circuits in the Jaguar. His tactic, then, was to keep his distance before leaping high into the air and dropping a kick down on Cossette's slightly smaller HAR. This worked a few times, rewarding him with a quick trio of three-hit combos, strikes made it close enough succession that the enemy had no time to respond. The third try, however, the Electra blocked his kick, leaving him off-balance as he fell to the floor and quickly worked to gather his footing.

It was just enough time for Cossette to land a quick punch and a heavy spin-kick to the Jaguar's upper torso, staggering him. Milano went on the defensive, stepping back as the Electra shot out a glowing ball of electricity. His outer arm shield plates grounded it harmlessly, but Cossette took the block as an opening, charging in to make a quick jab and several hurried low kicks. Two of these landed before the Jaguar caught Cossette's Electra by the arm, wrapped both arms around it and nearly folded over backward, dropping the HAR on its head. Before it could finish landing, a quick round-house kick sent the Electra flying high into the protective fence. The crowd panicked, backed away and cheered. Cossette pulled her HAR back upright, and didn't see Milano's Jaguar in the arena.

Worried, Cossette went on the defensive, looking the small, for a thirty-meter robot, space over for any sign of her opponent. The next instant she realized what was going on, and her tactical mind prepared to return his flying attack with a counter offensive. Instead, she found herself being spun through the air from above, and once more planting face-first into the protective wall. Plates rattled, and the fence swayed dangerously. When she got back up again, Milano was close, and Cossette lashed out at him with flurries of blows, light, light, heavy, heavy, a rain of static sparks, followed by a single kick to the torso that tore off an armor plate, scattering it and one of its rivets across the already fairly parts-strewn floor. Again she redoubled her efforts, and was rewarded by Milano side-stepping her attack and vanishing once again into the air.

Again she was slammed into the fence as Milano's Jaguar caught the Electra by the shoulders from the air, shifted its body weight and spun in a somersault that transferred its fall into the Electra's flight. When it dropped this time, the electrodes in the arm-points sparked, then went wild, sending shocks all up and down the machine, firing off its servos at random. "Milano wins!" called the announcer, and he turned to face the cameras, thrusting one three-pointed fist into the air.

"A laboratory is scheduled for construction in place of the hotel that was destroyed just last week," Crystal heard the news announcer say, distantly. "In the tournament tonight, Cossette gave Milano a run for his money, but came up a few thousand credits short." She turned to see a shot of Milano's victory stance as the reporter carried on, not smiling in spite of the obvious effort at comedy she was making. The secondary image switched to a brief video clip of the last overhead throw's carry-through, as the reporter finished, "Cossette held out for a while, but Milano wore her down with hits like this. WAR head of Public Relations offered his comments on the spectacle today," and the entire screen changed to a video of Shirro, not quite looking directly at the camera as microphones prodded up at him, "Milano was simply the better fighter," he stated, a token of amusement on his expression. "Cossette was favored because of her experience in the old Arena battles, but this new HAR stuff isn't for someone stuck in the past; it's the future. It was a good show, and we at WAR extend our applause to both contestants. If Mr. Steele thinks he's going to win, he'll quickly learn that Ms. Akira, though undoubtedly a formidable opponent, might be the least of his worries. Still, WAR wishes him the best." He began to turn away, paused, and looked dead into the camera, grinning. "Until he faces me. I'll rip that stupid Jaguar's limbs off and beat him down with them."


End file.
